Brad gritted his teeth. Like Nadia, he was tired of sitting idle while the enemy acted with impunity. How could they continue doing nothing, especially now that they had ripped at least a small hole in the maskirova, the cloak of deception, Russia was using to conceal its clandestine operations? What they needed was some way to tear that hole open wider.
He stirred suddenly, feeling the first faint glimmering of a plan starting to take shape in his mind. Admittedly, it bore no real resemblance to the kinds of “perfect war plans” so popular with armchair generals… but then again, real war was always messy and chaotic. Waiting for the chance to employ some tactic or strategy that looked perfect on paper only conceded the initiative to your enemy. That was what they’d been doing since Gryzlov’s first attack… and it was obviously a dead end.
When he said as much out loud, Martindale shrugged. “Maybe so, Brad. But what’s your alternative?”
“We stop pussyfooting around. We hit the concealed Russian air base at Moab,” Brad said flatly. “The way I see it, Gryzlov has been controlling the tempo of this secret war from the get-go. Everything that’s happening is following his script. We need to change that. We have to rattle his teeth so hard that we knock him off his preset plan. Because once he’s forced to start improvising, he’s more likely to start making mistakes — mistakes we can exploit.”
“Yes!” he heard Nadia crow. Macomber and his father both nodded their agreement.
Martindale frowned. “I understand the impulse to do something,” he said slowly. “But an attack on his base in Utah could easily backfire. What if it only convinces Gryzlov to withdraw the rest of his men and machines — leaving us worse off than we are now?”
Wilk nodded reluctantly.
“He won’t back off,” Brad said confidently. “Not if he’s sure that we were the ones who took a whack at him… instead of the U.S. government. It’ll be like waving a red cape in front of a bull. Gennadiy Gryzlov’s not going to turn tail and run from a small Iron Wolf unit. Not when he has a stronger force of his own combat robots.”
“Sure,” Macomber agreed. “Just how do you plan to let that Russian SOB know we were the ones who kicked him in the ’nads? Put out a press release? Or are you thinking about inviting a fucking CNN camera crew on a ride-along?”
“Not exactly,” Brad said. “But we will need to shake up our standard Iron Wolf operating procedure a little.”
“You mean the one where we storm in, blow the shit out of everything and everyone, and then book like bats out of hell?” the bigger man asked.
“Yep,” Brad agreed, with a boyish grin. “That would be the one.”
Gryzlov glowered at Vladimir Kurakin. “You can’t be serious! You actually believe this superstitious nonsense? That long-duration service in our Kiberneticheskiye Voyennyye Mashiny is inflicting psychological damage on their pilots?”
“Captain Aristov’s most recent reports do concern me,” Kurakin admitted. “The way he describes Colonel Baryshev and the others behaving is not… normal.”
“Normal?” Gryzlov scoffed. “Compared to what? How many other men have ever been given the chance to operate machines of such power?” He eyed the other man with open amusement. “Because the colonel and his men are extremely aggressive and eager to kill using their KVMs, you think that is somehow evidence of madness?” He smiled. “Have you ever really studied the way successful fighter pilots think, Vladimir? Because I can assure you that what Aristov describes is really nothing out of the ordinary. Good combat pilots are hunters whose prey is other men. Without the killer instinct, they are nothing.”
Kurakin looked unconvinced.
Gryzlov’s smile thinned. “Tell me… has this so-called psychological impairment you discern threatened the success of any mission?”
“No, sir,” the other man admitted.
“Then stop worrying,” Gryzlov ordered. “And tell Aristov to quit pissing himself just because better men are proving they have more guts than he does.”
For a moment, he thought Kurakin would argue with him. But the RKU chief only subsided with a tired nod. Too bad, Gryzlov thought coldly. He would have relished a confrontation, if only as a change of pace. But like so many others in his inner circle, the former special forces general was showing himself when pushed to be more lapdog than mastiff. Idly, he wondered what it said about the quality of his subordinates that Daria Titeneva was more of a man where it counted than any of the rest of them.
Thirty-Three
Wolf One, the Cybernetic Infantry Device piloted by Brad McLanahan, stood motionless two hundred meters east of the chain-link, razor-wire-topped fence that surrounded this private airport. The CID’s chameleon camouflage mirrored the soaring, faintly moonlit sandstone cliffs at its back, rendering it virtually invisible to the naked eye. The twelve-foot-tall machine was equally undetectable by IR sensors, since the thermal adaptive tiles coating its skin currently matched the precise heat signatures of the surrounding scrub, rock, and sand.
Two slowly pulsing green dots on Brad’s tactical display showed the positions of the other Iron Wolf robots in his combat team. Nadia and Whack Macomber were stationed about two kilometers east of the airport. Like his, their machines were using an array of passive sensors to probe the Regan Air facility — sharing every scrap of information the three of them amassed over secure data links.
He felt uneasy, all too aware that they were pressed for time… which denied the chance to make a really thorough reconnaissance. He and Nadia hadn’t been able to fly the Ranger into yet another improvised landing strip on a high mesa south of the Arches National Park until well after nightfall. Covering the intervening miles had required slow and painstaking movement across the rocky Moab highlands and then down onto the valley floor. And whatever happened here, they had to return to the XCV-62 and get her back in the air well before sunrise. All of which meant they had only a limited window of opportunity in which to strike.
Seen from the outside, this Russian-controlled airfield wasn’t much to look at, Brad decided. Just a couple of prefabricated metal buildings, a portable trailer, a handful of fuel trucks and cargo loaders, and the twin-engine Regan Air Freight 737-200F itself. Arc lights rigged to allow crews to work at night illuminated the cargo jet and the concrete apron around it.
His computer highlighted the trailer. Active satellite communications link detected, it reported. Additional electronic emissions indicate this building is the current flight operations control center.
He scanned along the perimeter fence. Apart from a linked network of IR-capable cameras, there were no other obvious defenses or sensors — no minefields, motion detectors, or even trip-wire-triggered flares. Nor could he spot any signs of bunkers or dug-in heavy weapons. Overall, it looked as though the Russians had opted for discretion over airtight security.
Across the runway to the west, a locked gate and guard shack blocked road access to the airport. Two men, wearing tan-and-blue uniforms that identified them as Regan Air security personnel, were posted at the gate. One had a pistol holstered at his waist. The other carried a shotgun.
Brad tagged the two guards on his display for the others. “Not exactly heavy-duty firepower,” he radioed. “Those guys at the gate look pretty much like standard-issue rent-a-cops to me.”